Mavric Posted November 30, 2016 Share Posted November 30, 2016 The biggest sign of the SEC's decline can be seen not just in the polls, in which the second highest ranked SEC team is Auburn at #14, but in its longtime rivalry with the ACC. All-time, the SEC is 299-154-10 against the ACC. This year, the tables are turned and the SEC is a mere 3-6. The ACC has now posted a winning record against the SEC in two of the past three seasons. The previous two losing seasons to the ACC were in 2002 and 1999. The ACC has overturned over a decade's worth of utter dominance by the SEC, and it's not looking like an accident. At root of the problem is that Nick Saban has effectively run off all of his coaching peers. There are only four coaches in the conference who have been at their current job for five or more years, and only Saban has lasted at least a decade. Dan Mullen is the only SEC coach other than Saban who has been at his job for more than five years. He's the sole survivor of the Saban Era. There is a batch of four coaches with precisely four years of experience at their current job. It's been a mixed bag. Gus Malzahn has alternated between great seasons and terrible ones, Butch Jones is dodging rumors of his imminent demise, Bret Bielema has yet to post a winning record in conference play at Arkansas, and Mark Stoops warded off the axe this year. This means that the coach with at least a four year tenure with the second-best winning percentage in the SEC is Kevin Sumlin. Let that sink in. Kevin Sumlin is arguably the most successful coach in the SEC not named Nick Saban. Ask an Aggie fan how happy they are with the job he's done. Link Quote Link to comment
Mavric Posted November 30, 2016 Author Share Posted November 30, 2016 Compare the SEC coaches to the rest of the nation, and you can see how the star is fading. Below is the average coaching records of each conference by career and at their current job. I've listed the SEC twice, once with Saban, and once without. Conference Career W L Pct Current W L Pct Big 12 11.7 91.4 50.6 0.644 8.9 73.2 36.0 0.670 SEC 9.6 54.6 30.2 0.644 3.8 29.6 17.2 0.633 MAC 11.7 68.5 38.2 0.642 3.9 22.9 24.8 0.481 ACC 14.1 81.6 45.6 0.642 4.5 34.4 21.6 0.614 Pac-12 11.3 71.7 44.0 0.620 4.8 34.8 23.3 0.600 Big Ten 10.8 57.9 36.7 0.612 4.6 34.4 22.3 0.607 SEC No Saban 7.5 42.8 27.9 0.605 3.3 23.0 17.2 0.573 AAC 7.0 51.0 33.5 0.604 3.1 20.4 15.8 0.564 MWC 8.0 45.4 34.4 0.569 3.8 24.2 21.7 0.527 Sun Belt 6.2 39.0 30.2 0.564 3.3 18.9 17.5 0.519 CUSA 8.8 36.2 33.9 0.517 4.0 23.9 23.3 0.506 Quote Link to comment
commando Posted December 1, 2016 Share Posted December 1, 2016 does this mean less than 10 sec teams in the preseason polls next year? Quote Link to comment
GSG Posted December 1, 2016 Share Posted December 1, 2016 does this mean less than 10 sec teams in the preseason polls next year? Pffft. Then what would eSECpn talk about 24/7? Quote Link to comment
huskerfan92 Posted December 1, 2016 Share Posted December 1, 2016 Think myself and a lot of others could see this coming just from their coaching hires. Seems they only want to hire from within their own conference instead of expanding. For instance Florida and Georgia taking Saban disciples, Missouri promoting their DC and South Carolina.....for whatever reason thinking Muschamp was the best choice. Even Orgeron at LSU, sure he did well there as an interim, but is that really the best LSU could do after Herman and Jimbo declined? Quote Link to comment
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